Franco's Custom Cocktail (UPDATE: Wood cutting commences!! =) )

[Franco B]

Awesome cab design, I look forward to seeing it finished.

Thanks, I cant wait to see it finished either. I don't want to rush though as I enjoy the build too much 

Amazing metal work Franco, it's absolutly stunning quality. Looking forward to seeing it finished.

On another note, you still making the hollow joysticks these days?

Looking forward to next update!

Cheers fella, you have PM.

This thread looks funny from the front page.

I know, someone commented on it before, I dont get it on mine, must be something to do with the wrapping on different resolutions etc. I cant actually change the title though as im no longer the author of the original post. Oh well, im sure it will give a few more giggles 

[Franco B]

Ive made the templates I was taking about before for routing the CP sides:



I milled them out of some 3mm aluminum sheet that I found, once again, in the scrap bin. They were quite easy to mill as I could just clamp the sheet to the machine table and mill the profile in one pass with the cutter 0.001" off the table. As the cutter was so close to the table it cut the shape out cleanly.



Im going to make the main button bezels next and they are going to be slightly more tricky to produce as they will be made from stainless steel and are more intricate. I have been having a bit of a think and this is how I intend to produce them:

First of all ill chop off and skim the faces of a some 250mm mild steel to make a jig base. Ill drill and tap M12 holes in the jig where the button centers are and also four holes for clamping:



Ill then cut out some 1.5mm stainless sheet slightly bigger than the finished bezel size and clamp it to the jig:



With the sheet clamped securely  Ill then be able to drill the 6 holes 10mm and then circle interpolate the holes to 28.5mm (0.5mm bigger than the button screw thread):



I will then clamp the milled sheet with some clamp washers using the M12 holes I drilled at the start:



I should then be able to mill the outer profile of the bezel:



Which should then leave me with something like this:



I will be able to use the same jig to make the bezels for the vertical CPs:



Ive actually got the jig base and clamp washers made, I should hopefully get them machined next week.



Ive got a few days off with it being Easter thank god (no pun intended!) so I should be able to get the CPs pretty much finished, well construction wise anyway.

Happy Easter y'all 

[Kaytrim]

That is quite the intricate process there Franco.  That template is all nice and shiny, you're gona need sunglasses as you work with it.   

[Franco B]

Ha ha!

By the time its finished ill think ill need some sunglasses because of all the polished metal and some sun lotion for the 150 or so LEDs 

By the way, have you got those shafts you drilled into any control panels yet?

[Kaytrim]

Not yet but I have two in the works that may use them.  I also have some flashy bling coming up. 

[Franco B]

Oooo, cant wait to see

[Franco B]

I made myself a router table fixture today to use with the templates I made.


You can commercially buy tables to mount your router to but in the spirit of things I though I would make my own 

I'm not saying anyone should build one as they could be potentially dangerous (like any power tool) but this is how I made mine.

I have an old B&D Workmate which I'm using to hold the fixture:



The bottom of my router has three M6 tapped holes so I made some large-head hex bolts to mount the router to the table:



I made the head oversize as the bolt will be taking the weight of the router and the whole thing needs to be really secure as you don't want the router falling/moving at 20,000 odd RPM.

I cut a piece of 12mm MDF to roughly the size of the workbench. The fixture is plenty big enough to route with the templates and should hopefully be big enough for any larger projects I have in the future. I'm using 12mm MDF rather than 18mm as the flush trim bit would not have been long enough to cut the 18mm MDF I will be cutting with the templates.

Luckily, the plastic base of my router was removable so I took it off and marked the mounting hole positions onto the MDF:



I then used a Forstner drill bit to counterbore the holes for the bolts so that they sit just below the level of the table. I also made sure the Forstner bit was large enough so that I could tighten the bolts with a socket.



I then drilled some 8mm holes using the Forster point as a center and then fitted the router to the fixture.

As 12mm MDF is fairly flexible I added a box section on the flip side of the fixture to keep the cutting area nice and flat. I'm also using the box section to clamp onto with the Workmate jaws:



This is the finished fixture:





It seems to have come out quite well and the router is held very securely.

Hopefully I should get the CP ends routed tomorrow night, ill let you know how I get on.

[dmworking247]

On behalf of myself and the 95% of the forum, could you kindly stop being so good at this stuff, especially this metal work bling... its making me feel so inadequate.   

 

[spacies]

Man isn't this thing finished yet?

 

[Franco B]

Thanks dmworking247, my wood work isnt up to much compared to most of you guys but im trying and its all good experience 

  @ spacies. I know, I originally planned to be finished by about now  The thing is, im trying to do everything in the right order, even if it means the whole thing takes a little longer. I could possibly get it done a bit faster by doing things out of sequence but Ill only run into problems and regret it in the long run.

At least its keeping me out of trouble at the moment 

[spacies]

At least its keeping me out of trouble at the moment 

Well if its keeping you off the streets then thats ok by me. 

Looking very nice though mate.
BTW, did you come up with a solution with the wires twisting for the hollow shafts?
I have an idea about illuminating them and not having wires up the shafts. Will let you know if it works. If it doesn't work, you won't hear from me, bahahahahaaaaaaaa. 

[Franco B]

  


Ive not given a lot of thought to the twisting wire issue. For me its not going to be much of a problem, I know all of my joints are going to be solid and it would take a lot of rotating the joystick to break the wires or joints and I can see anyone who will be playing on my cab twisting the joysticks like that. Even after rotating the joysticks many times the wires would eventually tighten up and it would take someone with little intelligence to keep twisting it.

If it does eventually happen I will just fix the damaged stick. If for some bizzare reason it happens more than once I will probably use the audio jack method as that seems the easiest and most logical solution.

What have you got in mind or is it under wraps?

Whilst im here......

I used the templates tonight and the CP ends have come out brilliantly!

Ive seen the future and its template shaped! 

[somunny]

How'd you do it, Franco?  I'm having a hard time cutting out small pieces with the router and a template.

btw - this project is really shaping up to be one-of-a-kind! 

[Kaytrim]

To do the type of template routing that Franco is doing here you can use double sided tape to attach the template to the wood.  Use a flush cut bit with a bearing in the router and ride the bearing along the template.  As long as the template doesn't move each piece will be identical.

TTFN
Kaytrim

[Kaytrim]

Oooo, cant wait to see

BTW Franco, Bling, Bling, check my thread. 

[somunny]

To do the type of template routing that Franco is doing here you can use double sided tape to attach the template to the wood.  Use a flush cut bit with a bearing in the router and ride the bearing along the template.  As long as the template doesn't move each piece will be identical.

TTFN
Kaytrim

I used a template to cut the large pieces of the Ark out bu was having some trouble keeping the wood and templates for the cp ends clamped together and routing them because the size is so small.  The double sided tape sounds like a good idea.  I had also considered screwing the pieces together.  I'm going to laminate them so it wouldn't matter.  I'll give the tape a try.  Thanks!

[Franco B]

I had the same problems routing the CP ends before somunny, the pieces were just too small to work with. I didnt really know anything about template routing but I thought it may be the answer so I googled teplate routing and I can up with the following image.



Thats what gave me the idea to make the routing fixture. To hold the templates to the top of the material I screwed the two together. I screwed a piece of the 32mm planed wood (the same material I used to make the box section on the reverse side of the fixture) on top of the template and through into the 18mm MDF to make a bit of a handle to give me something solid to hold onto. In hindsight this probably wasnt necessary as the router cut the material with ease but having never done it before I wanted to make sure I could hold it securely.

I hadnt thought about double sided tape Kaytrim, thats a good idea. As long as you have a large enough surface area in contract that would be the best solution as you would not get the screw holes in your finished material. Im covering my CP ends in carbon fibre so you wont see the holes but ill keep that in mind for future projects, thanks for the tip.

Btw, checked your thread Kaytrim, awesomes 

[Franco B]

Made a few modifications to my circular saw and the router fixture and it now doubles up as a saw table 



I drilled the holes to hold the circular saw to the table at work and whilst I was there I thought I would check the accuracy of the angle 'dial' as I have cut some angles with it before and i wasn't too sure that it was very accurate.

I set a vernier protractor to 10 degrees and set the saw blade to the protractor:



(you can also see the holes I drilled to bolt the circ saw to the fixture)

I then flipped the saw over and I could clearly see that the 'dial' is out by about two degrees over the ten:



The red line is the 10 degree mark. I scribed a line at the correct ten degree position for future cuts. In hindsight I should have marked the correct 10 degree position as I have some 45 cuts to make but ill just have to take it back into work.

I should hopefully be able to get some straight 10 degree cuts now. 

[Franco B]

Well once again it has been a while with little progress. Ive had quite a busy schedule as of late. Ive been busy working on some parts for various people and I have just about cleared my current backlog and have made a (very) little more progress.

When I was using the router table I made to cut out the CP ends I didn't use a dust vacuum and the amount of dust created combined with the heat of the router being used caused the main bearing to seize. I managed to take the router apart and replace the bearing (this time with a steel enclosure rather than the stock rubber one) and it works as  good as new again

With the router fixed I could cut the slots for the t-moulding in the CP ends. I should have used a/some large bearings to stop the cutter from cutting full depth but they are expensive so I just made some steel spacers. They are not ideal but they did the job.



I picked up the vinyl that I am going to cover my cab in today. I bought 5 square meters of matte black, one of royal blue and 2 of carbon fibre effect. I was hoping to use real CF but after pricing it up it would have cost about £200. In comparison the CF vinyl was £6. The  CF is only for looks so it will serve its purpose in this application.

After slotting the CP ends I couldn't resist adding some chrome t-moulding and CF vinyl to see what it will look like.



Looks pretty  to me   

I'm just going to cover the CP ends in the CF vinyl as well as a couple of other places on the cab. The rest of the cab will be matte black (inside and out) and the internal beams etc will be covered in the royal blue vinyl.

After many hours of polishing I finally finished the button bezels:



It would have been sooo much easier to have used a lazer/watter cutter but I dint have one immediately at my disposal.

Well that's it again for now. Short but sweet I know but I'm planning (once again) on making plenty of progress this week. We have been forecast some awesome weather over the next week and I have also cleared some space in the garage for me to work if the weather turns bad.

[mountain]

Franco, that CF and chrome T-molding look fantastic together!

This is going to be the nicest looking cocktail cabinet ever. Hurry up! Quit waisting your time on other members cabinets. 

[Franco B]

Thanks Mike 

I thought they would look good together but i never imagined they would look that good. I was thinking abut how to have the grain but I just cut the material as it was (at 90 degrees to the sheet) and I think that angle works really well.

I think 'nicest looking cocktail ever' may be stretching it but thanks, i do however still have a few tricks up my sleeve

Now wheres that update of yours

[somunny]

Wow!  That cp end looks amazing!    Nice work as always.

[mccoy178]

Things are looking good man!  I wish I had that metal mill.

[Blanka]

I do not now if it is still relevant, but you said on the first page that there is no 19inch+ LCD monitor. Well, there are 21.3 inch 1600x1200 panels. You know what? These screens even happen to be the best in respect to viewing angles. Check out a Samsung 214T sometimes. An absolute marvel 4:3 screen. It even has a pivot function built in that sets Windows XP accordingly.

[Franco B]

Thanks for that Blanka.

Having a quick google I can see that that monitor is £450 over here  I have already built my cab around my 21" CRT and I have two spares (which cost me £10 each) but its good to know I may be able to pick one of those up in the future if these eventually die.

I 'did' plan on getting loads done this week but I have been 'entertaining'  so I haven't have much time on my build.

I have had a few hours this afternoon tho and I have completed a fairly major part of my build in terms of what it will allow me to carry on with now.

Ive managed to get the major CP contruction complete:





This has been a bit of a bottle neck in my project as I couldn't continue with various aspects until they were semi complete. Now that they are 'finished' I can now:

a) Get my table top cut out ( i didn't want to cut the profile in case anything changed in regards to the CP sizes)

b) Get the plexi cut to size for the bottom of the CPs (see above)

c) Get the CP graphics designed (ditto)

That's the next plan of action until I have completed those steps.

I have decided to add a spinner to my CP. I have made a couple of spinners but I'm not sure which design to use. These are the two candidates:



These are two pictures of the rough spinner location (at this moment in time). Which do you think would look better?





The grooved one would match my dustwashers but I really like the one with the brass insert. I'm thinking of maybe making a brushed stainless insert and getting it engraved with a spacie to match the general theme of my cab. I may even get a brass insert engraved instead as I really like the look of the brass in contrast to the stainless.

I'm really getting exited now I'm at this stage now I'm past the current bottleneck. Time for a shandy or two methinks

Over and out....

[somunny]

Whoa!     Absolutely beautiful!

[patrickl]

I like the brass version best too. Both are very nice.

[Franco B]

Thanks guys.

Yeah I'm leaning towards the brass one, I think I'm going to go with that.

Well after yesterdays progress I was keen to get on with it today so I had a 6.30 am start. I tried to be quiet until about 9 before I got cracking with the power tools

The first thing I did was to get the CPs mounted to the cab. I have just screwed them from the inside at present but I'm going to make some brackets to hold them to the cab this week.



I also got the cabinet top cut out somewhere near size and I jigsawed the bulk of the material out before finishing it with my router.



You can just about see the top profile penciled on in the next picture. I may reduce the whole CP top slightly but I'm definitely going to trim some material off the back edge to reduce its size. I don't want to take too much off all around though as I want to keep a fair amount of area for the CP graphics and LED lit perspex inserts.



I haven't cut the table top profile as I'm going to make some templates at work for the large radii on the corners and also for the recess profiles as well as a template for the cutout so I can mount the tinted blue vinyl covered plexi with spacie cutouts behind the CPs. Its hard to explain but you will see soon enough.

You can also see that I have cut the monitor opening over size. I'm going to make a solid aluminium 45 degree bezel for the monitor. If it end up being too bright ill just cover it in black vinyl. Hopefully it should look nice under tinted glass.

All in all I'm happy for four hours work. I'm really happy with how its looking and I had a quick mock play on the cabinet to test the CP heights and viewing angle etc and I must say its come out exactly as planned in those respects. Its nice that things are going right for once

[somunny]

Franco, out of curiosity, what are the dimensions of your small end cp's?

[Franco B]

The 'horizontal' part of the smaller CPs (where the controls are) are 295x185mm, the vertical section is 295x65mm.

[Franco B]

Had another 6.30am start today 

Ive been getting on all morning. Im quite impressed myself seeing as I have GTA4 sat there and ive only had a couple of hours on it. Im really getting the build bug now im making some decent progess.

I made the three templates for the table top profile. One with a 100mm radius, one with the CP cut out profile and one with a 25mm radius for another part of the cab.



Quick pic of the templates in posistion. I jigsawed the bulk of the material out before using a flush trim bit to follow the shape of the templates.



Which left me with the semi finished table top.



I may trim a piece of the far side of the table top. It looks a little large to me and all it is doing is hanging over the backside of the table so its not serving a purpose. I think I may trim about 40mm off.

I also made some other progress but ill include that in the next update.

[mountain]

Very nice Franco, great idea using your metal skills to create the templates. I am sure it is spot on.

I can't wait for the update pics when you start to assemble everything with the CF and t-molding. 

[Franco B]

Cheers Mike, I cant wait till I get to that stage too 

Well, its been another 6.30am start but Ive manged to get plenty done:

• Disassembled the whole cab
• Routed the 'straight' sides to length
• Routed the 'triangular' ends to length for aluminum trim (more on that later)
• Template routed the cutouts above the CPs
• Cut the slots for the t-moulding in the 'straight' sides, CP cutouts and table top
• Reassembled everything

Couple of pics:









(the second pic looks a bit wonky for some reason, i swear its all straight!  )

Really happy with how its looking

Im planning on having the admin buttons in the vertical sections either side of the long hoizontal CP. I have very kindly been traded some awesome kit for them but I wont post anything on them until they have been revealed by the originator.

The eagled eyed amongst you may have noticed a slight gap between the side panels and the front/back panels on the third photo. This is because I'm going to trim those sides with 1.5mm aluminum strip. I don't want to have any wooded edges showing, even when the cab is opened (top up, sides down). I'm trimming the CP tops and back edges with aluminum too, similar to this picture:



That's it for today again, I have the whole day off tomorrow so i should be able to get plenty more done. I think I'm going to run out of things to do tho before I get some artwork etc sorted out, I think I had better make that my next priority. I know what I want for it, I just need to find someone with better skills than my paint skills to work on it for me   

Bye for now!

[ex_directory]

Hey Franco, cab suddenly coming together and looking very sweet indeed. Loving the fine detail, looking forward to seeing them admin buttons, you just know it is going to be lit and have a stainless bezel though

Let me know if you need any help getting that artwork a bit more together. BTW, like the spinners! 
Ex

[Franco B]

Cheers bud

you just know it is going to be lit and have a stainless bezel though

Am I that obvious? 

Cheers mate, ill have to have a chat with you about the artwork.

[somunny]

Franco,

What are you going to do with the open spaces above each panel?

[Franco B]

All will be revealed soon

Im just waiting on some materials. I can say it involves blue tinted plexi, clear polycarbonate, aluminum foil, printed vinyl and (of course) some LEDs.

[somunny]

All will be revealed soon

Im just waiting on some materials. I can say it involves blue tinted plexi, clear polycarbonate, aluminum foil, printed vinyl and (of course) some LEDs.

Well, you haven't disappointed me yet! 

[dmworking247]

The bottom of my router has three M6 tapped holes so I made some large-head hex bolts to mount the router to the table:

Wait, you MADE those?

Holy crap, they look perfect for the sharp-angled cocktail I'm planning, can you make me 8 of those with a thin head?

Thanks for the tip on the workbench/router table, I have a workbench just like that... I'm going to go and have a closer read

Edit: On second thoughts, seeing the progress of your cocktail I think I'll just give up now!   

[Franco B]

Sure, I can make you some.

There just some 24mm AF (across flats) s/steel hex bar turned and screwcut.

I think thats the only hex stainless bar we have but we do have some other sizes of mild steel hex bar.

Shoot me a PM of what sizes you need (Hex size, head width, screw form/pitch and thread length) and Ill see what I can do.